Enlarge ImageRequest to buy this photoCourtney Hergesheimer | DISPATCHFrom left: Emory Jones, Lyndsey Crabbe and Claude Towns, all patients of the Hanger Clinic, which cares for amputees with prosthetic limbs

Without her feet, Lyndsey Crabbe gets around the farm where she lives, drives a car without
using hand controls and stands in high heels all day while working as a bank teller.

After her lower legs were amputated at age 12 during an almost-fatal fight with yersinia — the
bacterial infection also known as the plague — Crabbe even mastered cartwheels and roundoffs to
rejoin her cheerleading team.

But, recently, she knew she could do more when a guy she was dating called things off, saying
she was holding him back from activity.

Determined to prove him wrong, Crabbe began training on new, shock-absorbing prosthetics that
she calls her “running legs.” Last summer, she took her first, exhilarating running steps in 13
years.

“It felt so good to get back and run,” said Crabbe, 26, a resident of Caledonia in Marion
County. “It felt like I had my feet back.”

In her first 5-kilometer running event on Sunday, Crabbe hopes to run at least a mile and walk
the rest. In doing so, she will also raise money for amputees whose surgeries were devastating
financially.

The inaugural Hanger Clinic 5K Run/Walk for Limb Loss benefits Limbs for Life, an international
nonprofit organization that provides financial assistance to almost 500 patients annually.

For amputees who — unlike Crabbe — lack health insurance, a prosthetic limb can cost $15,000 to
$100,000. And they need replacing every two or three years.

Hanger Clinic provides prosthetic care to patients at 700 locations, including two in Columbus.
Business development manager Jason Neuenschwander hopes the Columbus race will be replicated by
other clinics across the country, with some having already expressed interest.

The clinic expects almost 300 race participants — several of whom, such as Crabbe, are Hanger
patients thankful for the difference that prosthetics have made in their lives.

Lower-leg amputee Emory Jones used a wheelchair for 11/2 years after a driver collided with his
motorcycle in 1991. With a prosthetic right leg, he got back on his Harley and now counsels injured
bikers through a Christian motorcycle group.

“Life won’t be the same, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do the same things,” said Jones, 57, of
Marengo in Morrow County.

Westerville resident Claude Towns, 47, has a similar mantra after his amputation in 1990. As a
Toledo firefighter, he was driving to a burning building when the firetruck was hit by a car,
causing the truck to fold in on his left leg.

Towns felt distraught for two years, having worked so hard to become a firefighter. But he
remains one today, teaching firefighting to students in Columbus City Schools and at Columbus State
Community College.

Like other amputees, Towns still struggles daily with pain but continues to make progress.
Prosthetics, he said, gave him the confidence to set and attain goals: Engaged to be married next
month, he recently snorkeled 5 miles using his “water leg” during a Caribbean vacation.

“I don’t look at it as a disability,” he said. “I look at it as something that happened, but it
didn’t stop my life.”